Aussie Aussie Aussie???

What’s wrong with boxing? Why isn’t it taken seriously in this country despite the depth of talent and the world champions we now have? I mean Darchinyan, N’Dou, Mundine and Katsidis all have belts, regardless of how highly we may think of those baubles and they are world champions sort of (or at least up there with the best in the world anyway) but still its not a sport that garners the attention of the public like the cricket or footy or even the bloody golf! Well, here’s something to think about.

Friday night fights on Fox sports – bigtime boxing live from Cronulla 4^th May. Australian Junior Middleweight title on the line. That’s right Australian championship on the line. The champion Ryan Waters has had eight fights and won five. The challenger Jay Sims has had five fights and won two! And they’re fighting for the belt, for the right to be Aussie champion! Now, I don’t mean offence to either fighter because they did put up a hell of a show but come on…thirteen fights between them and the Aussie belt is on the line!? Two victories and you get a shot at the title? And Waters beat Sam Setu for the title and Setu isn’t rated in the ANBF top ten?

I know the best fighters are chasing the regional belts and trying to get rated in the world rankings and the rules are that you can’t hold a regional and Aussie title at the same time but come on … what about some common sense? Let them hold both until they truly are fighting international fights (and I don’t mean some poor schmuck from Indonesia who comes over to get flattened by the local boy and keep his record clean).

There’s what? 3 or 4 of those regional baubles floathing around now? That could mean the best four fighters in any weight division in Australia are prevented from holding the Australian belt? How does that help the sport?

Look at the champions of the past – Tony Mundine, Charkey Ramon, Hector Thompson, Tony Miller, Bobby Dunlop, Paul Ferrerri… etc etc that’s a list that takes your breath away with its talent and depth. The Australian title was something you held with pride, it was a stepping stone to the world rankings, now it seems like it’s a left over for the guys who don’t get that chance. If we can’t get the best in this country to fight each other how can we expect anyone but us fanatical supporters to even care about the sport? And again I reiterate I am in no way trying to put down the boxers who do get the chance to fight for the titles I just want to see the best go at it, I want to see the sport become mainstream (or at least get more coverage) and I can’t see that happening with fights like Friday nights job – great contests but irrelavent.

When people think titles or championships or premierships or world cups they expect to see the best vs the best – not the team on the bottom vs the team in the middle ‘cos the other guys are too busy doing something else or are caught up in the politics or just don’t care about the cup/belt/pride. And how did it help young Sims to get the shot anyway? Sure he looked competitive for a while but he got beat up, he gets another loss (now 2-4) how does that help him? Hell, he might just get sick of getting beat up and we’ll lose him from the sport altogether.

We could be up there with the world’s best – some of our fighters already are but if we keep spoonfeeding opponents to the new kids, if we keep denigrating the Aussie title, if we keep claiming these regional belts really mean anything in the bigger picture we could lose this chance to really put boxing back on the map, to really get it back out there in the mainstream where it should be. I don’t want three channels of bloody rugby I want three channels of boxing!!!